


I Am Tired

by painted_carousel



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Introspection, Nicole Has an Existential Crisis, One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-01-23 04:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18542236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painted_carousel/pseuds/painted_carousel
Summary: Waverly stared at her drink, exhaustion seeping from her pores.“We did the best we could, with acutely few choices, may I add.”Nicole looked up, her bottom lip protruding slightly. It was her tell when something was on the verge of being voiced, something that couldn't be taken back.Before she could speak, the sharp crack of pool balls striking each other jarred her and Waverly. The room stilled, the slow rumble of a ball rolling back to the center of the table punctuating the silence.“Don’t you ever just get tired?”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nicole, Waverly and Wynonna grapple with the reality of destiny and the Earp Curse following a long evening of battles.





	1. Chapter 1

_"I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact._ " - Claude Levi-Strauss

Setting: Shorty’s, a frigid mid-winter night; late and still, the bar is informally closed due to a gusting, blizzard-foreshadowing wind that has most of Purgatory tucked into whatever warm corners they can find. Nicole and Waverly are hunched over the bar, exhaustion permeating every cell; Wynonna is on the edge of the pool table, legs dangling, idly rolling pool balls back and forth. She’s sitting in disconcerting silence and a tipsiness that is gradually sliding from pensive to somber.

The three have recently trudged away from a particularly brutal battle, the victim of Peacemaker yet another too young/wrong place, wrong-time/didn't -choose-to-be-swept-up-in-American-Manifest-Destiny-Westward-expansion-imperialist-destruction outlaw that sent Waverly into quiet, desperate inward deliberations; Nicole into painful grappling with her chosen career pathway; and Wynonna into a bender that would obliterate any of the introspection her two counterparts found themselves consumed by.

Waverly stared at her drink, exhaustion seeping from her pores. 

“We did the best we could, with acutely few choices, may I add.”

Nicole looked up, her bottom lip protruding slightly. It was her tell when something was on the verge of being voiced, something that couldn't be taken back.

Before she could speak, the sharp crack of pool balls striking each other jarred her and Waverly. The room stilled, the slow rumble of a ball rolling back to the center of the table punctuating the silence as Wynonna gripped her pool stick and swayed back towards the bar, her elbows resting heavily on the scuffed varnish.

Nicole wiped some condensation from her beer bottle and stared at Wynonna.

“Don’t you ever just get tired?” Nicole made unblinking eye contact with Wynonna's swaying form.

Wynonna shifted to a standing position but leaned heavily on the end of a pool stick. She squinted at Nicole and slowly shook her head.

“No time, no peace, Haught pot.”

Waverly gulped back the rest of her drink, grimacing. 

“Sometimes I think Earps were just born tired. But then again, I guess I wouldn’t really know,” Waverly finished with a joyless chuckle.

Waverly and Nicole both seemed to be searching for something in the other’s eyes, a pact or consensus of some kind. But as both sets of eyes tracked back and forth, attempting to unravel the tangle of meanings and unspoken words, a quiet sense of defeat hit Nicole.

Wynonna could feel it all. The power and isolation and utter recklessness that comes with being adrift. Always, always, the push and pull of a deep need for community and the abdication of responsibility for others. The liberation of renouncing one’s roots and in turn, the intoxication of denying all responsibility for the past. She’d be hard pressed to find a better MO.

Nicole looked around at the wreckage of an evening through which the three of them had careened. The damage seemed overwhelming and suddenly, long stifled words rose to the surface before she could stop them.

“We take lives. We take not-quite-presently-but-once-fully-human lives and send those literally goddamned souls to hell. Arbiters and executioners, sometimes by necessity, other times whisky-soaked and on a bender."

Waverly shrank at the outburst, while Wynonna looked on with her patented blend of confrontational disinterest.

Nicole continued, "And what were they when they became Revenants? Petty thieves? Tax-dodgers? Women without means? For that, some self-appointed outlaw hunter single-handedly made the decision to take a human life as payment. And now here we are, 150 years later pretending like we have some fucking authority? Or power?”

Nicole was pacing at this point, her alcohol-reddened face twisting with something bordering on panic.

“No way. Before I even lost all my baby teeth, I was nearly killed in a supernatural massacre. And you, Waverly, have been told your entirely life you’re both too exceptional for where you are and too damaged for somewhere better. Oh and you’ve also nearly died at least 12 separate times since I met you. And then there's Wynonna, who has been chasing around death like a friendly stray dog. All of us are way too intimately acquainted with our own mortality. So no, I don’t think this is some story of good guys battling evil. We’re not doing what’s right. We’re being forced to choose survival over and over and over again while we watch fragments of humanity slip away, all in the name of some bullshit destiny? 

Just give it all back. Give back the legacy. Give back the repercussions. I can’t.. No. We can’t carry this anymore.”

Wynonna pauses for a beat after Haught’s outburst. She grips a cue ball tightly in her right hand, staring at it like a crystal ball. Without warning, she hurls it with more force than her 7 shots-deep body should be able to muster, smashing a few precious bottles of whiskey. 

“Welcome to the dollhouse, Haught. My forthcoming book on ethics and Wild West morality will be available for purchase at the weird fucking diner no one in Purgatory goes to anymore. Until then, just remember one thing- I’m the goddamn Earp heir.”

Waverly watched Nicole shudder through a bone-weary sigh, while Nicole glanced at Waverly tossing back the rest of her drink with a grimace that she could sense went well beyond the bite of the alcohol.

Nicole abruptly dropped her head in her hands. “You’re right, Wynonna. You’re the recipient of a destiny. And I don’t think this act--” -- with a slow deep breath, Nicole raised her eyes towards Waverly--, “needs a third wheel.”  


With that, Nicole Haught walked out of the doors of Shorty’s, a despondent but resigned Waverly watching her retreating form.


	2. Exits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waverly and Nicole each grapple with the night's exhausting events. A short bridge chapter meant to kickstart the rest of this journey, so stick around.

She was less shocked than heavy as she watched Nicole walk out of Shorty’s that night.

But Waverly couldn’t stop those words from echoing inside her.

_Arbiters and executioners_. 

Waverly couldn’t remember a time she had felt more hollow. It was as if she could feel Nicole’s presence slowly seeping away, the air around her becoming less ionized. In Waverly’s mind, it had always been fated.

_Not even an Earp and still I get to inherit all of its curses_.

She looked over at Wynonna, who was gripping the edge of the pool table, hair falling in wild waves as she hung her head. Waverly guessed she wasn’t the only one affected by Nicole’s words. A second later, she could see Wynonna physically shake off whatever rare moment of self-reflection had occurred, completing the process of disengagement with a long pull from the bottle of whiskey she’d swiped from behind the bar.

“Baby girl, I know you love her. And you know I’m always here for you. But tonight wasn’t the fucking night. So I’m gonna  
take this bottle and head back to the Homestead as I try to not imagine Haught-Shit-For-Brains being used as the practice dummy in a Revenant game of “Skin the Pale Off the Honky.”

Waverly pinched the bridge of her nose. Only Wynonna could manage to spontaneously improv a grotesque “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” pun and affirm Waverly’s sadness all in one disturbing fell swoop.

She watched Wynonna stumble out into the bitterly cold wind. As the heavy, bullet-marred doors of Shorty’s swung shut, Waverly exhaled an icy breath. She looked around and took in the tables and chairs, the worn felt on the pool tables, the deeply varnished bar in front of her where her daddy and grandaddy and great-granddaddy had sat before her. Then she shuddered, remembering how not a goddamn second of it was true.

**********************************************************************************************************

Nicole walked numbly down the desolate main street of Purgatory, shame and grief propelling her away from the light and warmth of Shorty’s and the only person she would normally turn to in a moment like this. The storm had slowed enough for such a dramatic exit but Nicole felt a bleak solitude chasing her as she shuffled down the isolated, ice-coated roads.

The jolt of her actions and the new reality she would be facing come morning were slowly beginning to coalesce. She did her best to shake the image of defeated resignation playing out in Waverly’s face, the weight of her words summoning an overwhelming sense of disbelief in the cataclysmic decision she had made.

Nicole carried this despondency all the way back to her home.She walked in the front door of her apartment to silence. No Calamity Jane, no messages beeping from the antiquated answering machine Nedley insisted she have along with her landline. 

_No Waverly_.

Nicole took off her coat first, then her shoes. She bent down to place them neatly in the corner, wishing it was like any other night when she would see Waverly's worn brown snow boots and her frayed scarf, dripping melting ice crystals onto the laminate floor. As she straightened up, she felt cold metal press into the back of her neck.

Nicole took a deep shuddering breath, the idea of her evening’s prospects becoming worse suddenly sounding borderline funny. However, a deep, commanding voice stifled her amusement.

“Sit your ass down, Haught.”

“Dolls! What the hell are you doing here?”


	3. Cascading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But then there was Nicole. And after that first fraught meeting (Waverly still blushed thinking about Nicole’s hands running up her side as she helped untangle her from her shirt), Waverly’s repertoire of arguments, reminding her that her relationship with Champ was not only fine but enviable in fact, stopped seeming so persuasive.
> 
>  _God, Nicole, what have I done?_ Waverly dimly thought as she fell into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waverly and Wynonna separately and together confront hard truths. Angst City, y'all.

The night had devolved into a fairly mutual bender and for the first time in nearly two years, Waverly slept in her old room above Shorty’s. Despite the obscene quantity of whiskey downed by her and Wynonna (she would be paying Doc later for the havoc wreaked on his bar as well as his inventory), Waverly was struck by the cascade of memories triggered as she collapsed on the long unused bed. Waverly had leapt so far beyond what she had once thought possible that sometimes, on bleary nights like these, she began to wonder if she had overshot. 

Before collapsing into a black, anxious sleep, Waverly couldn’t help but think back to falling asleep next to Champ, both before and after meeting Nicole. She remembered how a night in which Champ bothered to ask her how her day had been (which was generally a roundabout way to figure out how much she had made in tips during her Shorty’s shift) would provoke in Waverly such disproportionate affection, a desperate grasping at intimacy, that the evening would almost always end in mediocre sex. And Waverly would try doggedly to convince herself while drifting off to sleep that this is what happiness looks like. It wasn't that things with Champ were wrong. It was just that in the quietest, darkest moments while drifting off to sleep, Waverly would reluctantly admit to herself that things were never _right_. 

But then there was Nicole. And after that first fraught meeting (Waverly still blushed thinking about Nicole’s hands running up her side as she helped untangle her from her shirt), Waverly’s repertoire of arguments, reminding her that her relationship with Champ was not only fine but enviable in fact, stopped seeming so persuasive.

 _God, Nicole, what have I done?_ Waverly dimly thought as she fell into a fitful sleep.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Early the next morning, Waverly startled awake, jagged pains shooting through her head and nausea dogging her, likely for more reasons than just a hangover, she suspected. She dragged herself home, driving cautiously on the still snow and ice covered roads, and quietly let herself into the Homestead. Waverly moved as noiselessly as possible, careful not to wake Wynonna. After removing her jacket and snow-covered boots, she made her way into the kitchen and turned on the kettle. As she packed the strainer full of loose leaf chamomile and poured hot water over the tea leaves, watching the water change from clear to light amber, Waverly mourned the hollowness of her morning ritual. Her and Wynonna had been so hell-bent on fully self-destructing by the end of the night that she had managed to delay confronting the waves of grief she could feel thrumming through her body. Just as she felt tears threatening to fall, she heard movement near the doorway to the kitchen.

“I’ll take a cup of that too, Waves, but make my light on the “Soothing Sunshine” and heavy on Earp Elixir.” Waverly rolled her eyes but poured Wynonna a cup of tea, splashing in what was left in the contents of whatever bottle Wynonna had swiped from Shorty’s last night.

“So, how did you fair during the rest of your night, Wynonna?” Waverly asked haltingly. 

“Well, Doc berated me for drinking all of his whisky, I nearly burned down the Homestead trying to make late night apology grilled cheeses for him and I, then I fell asleep in just my underwear and Doc’s hat. So, you know, pretty typical. You?”

Waverly chuckled in spite of herself, Wynonna’s predictable level of dysfunction oddly comforting. 

“Wynonna, you know our lives are extremely fucked up, right?”

Wynona snorted. “Baby girl, I may be the Mayor of Denial City, province of Aggressive Repression Land, but trust me, I’m aware of it. But honestly, Waves, when haven’t our lives been fucked up? “

“I know, Wynonna. And listen, you’re such a good Mayor.” 

Wynonna smirked.

“But,” continued Waverly, “maybe there’s a reason that everytime we clear house of the bad people, the good ones still seem to leave as well.”

“Waverly, normally I find your riddlespeak a charming quirk that I have to assume has prevented you from getting laid _many_ times over. But right now I’m incredibly hungover and my “tea” hasn’t quite kicked in yet. So what’s going on, no more dancing around it?”

Waverly gripped her mug tightly with one hand, biting distractedly at her thumb nail on the other. She took a deep breath, slowly meeting Wynonna’s tired but concerned gaze. 

“Wynonna, if I’m not an Earp, if I’m not mythically, generationally cursed to gun down revenants until one of us is left standing... Am I..does that make me..” Waverly’s voice wavered. She paused, chewing at her lip while she summoned some resoluteness to articulate her dread.

“Wynonna, I think Nicole is right. I think I’m just a murderer.”

Wynonna watched Waverly physically shudder as that final word left her lips. A moment passed before she defaulted to her usual bluster, frowning and shaking her head. 

“Listen Waverly, all I can say is that I love Red and, I mean, the girl’s been loyal to a fault. But her Sheriff Do Gooder sense of right and wrong don’t really vibe with 200 year old mythical curses.”

Waverly jumped in before Wynonna could say anything else.

“Wynonna, it’s not just about whatever ethical code Nicole does or doesn’t follow. I’ve lied, to both you and Nicole. I’ve done terrible, dark things that I still can’t forgive myself for. In spite of that, I’ve had real, true love, apparently more love than I could bear, because no matter how many times I pinch myself just so I can keep experiencing the sensation of awakeness, of knowing you’re here and Nicole is here and I’m here and we’re all still breathing and I do in fact have love; at any given moment, after each reminder, this impulse in me keeps telling me to walk away. Just walk away from all of it because it’s not really for me. I still taste the noxious sensation I lived with every day that Mictian was a part of me, this pervasive smell of decay and bitterness and self-destruction. And sometimes when I’m falling asleep at night, when Nicole is working a night shift and I can’t feel her right next to me, I think about how I’m probably losing tiny fragments of her everyday, and soon enough she’ll dissolve into nothingness and it will be all my fault. So sometimes, I just want to leave before it’s too late.”

Wynonna shook her head, finding herself unable to pull her eyes away from the worn, bullet-damaged wood of the Homestead’s rough-hewn kitchen table. She took downed the rest of the contents of her tea cup in one gulp, closing her eyes briefly before looking at Waverly with narrowed eyes.

“Red really did a number on both of us last night, didn’t she?”

___________________________________________________________________________________

_Nicole,_

_I’m staring at the scarf I was wearing the first time I decided to be truly brave with you and wondering where all of that honesty went. That day in Nedley’s office, I couldn’t fathom hiding a single piece of my self. You looked at me and I felt the words rush out, called almost. You reminded me that sometimes stepping through a doorway is enough._

_If I could look you in the eyes right now, I’d tell you that I’m terrified beyond belief. Terrified that the foundation you and I thought were were building was being swept away, over and over again, with every swallowed truth. Sometimes I wonder at the stories we construct. Come daylight, I’ll gameplan with Wynonna and apologize to Doc for draining his bar and wait for you to walk into the station so I can calmly and rationally plead with you to not blow apart the ground beneath my feet. But tonight, surrounded by reminders of a previous life, all I can ask is, was any of this real?_

_I know that the world Wy and I live in forces us to make brutal, devastating choices every day. And I know that sometimes I take for granted the ethical position in which you’re put. That day Wynonna killed Jonah? I saw something flicker in you, Nicole. I saw a moment of quiet horror that I’m not sure you’ve fully recovered from. And I know that in spite of my intellect, and the ways in which I sometimes compulsively trawl for flaws in Earp Curse strategies, I’m not the most self-reflective person in Purgatory. I know I’ve plowed blindly forward, with both the Curse and this relationship, even when I’ve maintained an emotional distance that’s been self-destructive in both cases. It may be too late, Nicole. And if it is, you owe me no explanation. But all I can say right now is that I’m ready to explore all of it._

_I’m not sure what a world without you looks like. I love you more than I can possibly say, Nicole. I guess that will have to do for now._

_-Waverly_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a sincere thanks for giving this little fic a try!


End file.
